Period 6 Social Transformations: The West, Immigration, and the Gilded Age City

Homestead Act (1862)

Federal law offering eligible settlers parcels of public land if they lived on and improved it; intended to promote small farming but often benefited speculators and large landholders and proved difficult for many homesteaders.

Transcontinental Railroad (completed 1869)

Rail line linking the interior West to eastern markets (Promontory Summit, Utah), accelerating migration, settlement, and resource extraction; built by private companies with heavy federal support (e.g., land grants and favorable policies).

Mining and Resource Extraction

Western economic activity (gold, silver, copper, timber) that drove rush migrations, created fast-growing boomtowns, and intensified conflicts over land and water.

Tribal Sovereignty

The right of Native nations to govern themselves and control their lands; westward expansion and U.S. policy repeatedly undermined this autonomy.

Treaty System

Agreements between the U.S. government and Native nations that were frequently renegotiated under pressure or violated when settlers, railroads, miners, or ranchers entered treaty-guaranteed lands.

Buffalo Extermination

Near-eradication of the Great Plains buffalo through commercial hunting, railroad expansion, and military strategy; destroyed a key basis of Plains Indian subsistence and increased dependency and coercion.

Reservation System

Federal policy confining Native peoples to designated areas, typically reducing land bases and increasing reliance on federal agents and rations while pressuring cultural change.

Assimilation Policy (late 1800s)

Federal efforts to pressure Native Americans to adopt Euro-American farming, Christianity, English, and individual landownership—often framed as “uplifting” but aimed at eroding tribal culture and political autonomy.

Dawes Act (1887)

Law that broke up communal tribal lands into individual allotments; after allotment, remaining “surplus” land was sold to non-Native settlers, causing major Indigenous land loss and weakening tribal governance.

Sand Creek Massacre (1864)

Attack on Cheyenne and Arapaho people in Colorado Territory; example of brutal violence that escalated Plains conflicts (part of the broader post–Civil War conquest story).

Battle of Little Bighorn (1876)

Lakota and Cheyenne forces defeated Custer’s unit; rather than ensuring Native victory, it prompted a larger federal response and increased political will to crush resistance.

Nez Perce War (1877)

Conflict marked by the Nez Perce attempt, associated with Chief Joseph, to flee toward Canada after U.S. pressure to move onto a reservation.

Wounded Knee (1890)

Killing of Lakota people at Wounded Knee; widely seen as symbolizing the end of major armed resistance in the “Indian Wars” era.

Ghost Dance

Late-1880s Native religious movement promising spiritual renewal and hope for the return of lost ways of life; often misread by U.S. officials as a military threat, contributing to tensions leading to Wounded Knee.

Push–Pull Factors

Framework for explaining migration: push factors drive people out (poverty, persecution, instability), while pull factors attract them (industrial jobs, land ownership hopes, family/community networks).

Chain Migration

Migration pattern in which earlier migrants help relatives or neighbors follow (money, housing, job leads), contributing to clustered immigrant communities.

New Immigration

Late-1800s increase in immigrants from southern and eastern Europe; many native-born Americans viewed these newcomers as more culturally/religiously different, fueling nativist backlash.

Nativism

Belief that native-born Americans’ interests should be prioritized and that certain immigrants are undesirable; shaped restriction laws, political coalitions, and social/workplace conflict.

Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)

Federal law severely restricting Chinese immigration; driven by labor competition and racialized politics, and an early landmark in U.S. immigration restriction.

Rural-to-Urban Migration

Movement of people from farms to cities for wage labor as industrial jobs expanded and agriculture became more mechanized and tied to national markets.

Exodusters

African Americans who moved to Kansas and other western areas in the late 1870s seeking land, safety, and autonomy away from Southern violence and exploitation (distinct from the later Great Migration).

Tenements

Overcrowded urban apartment buildings housing many working-class families; often poorly ventilated and unsafe because landlords maximized rent by packing in units with minimal sanitation.

Political Machine

City party organization led by bosses/ward leaders that won votes by providing aid and services (jobs, food, rent help) and then used patronage and contracts—often involving corruption—to maintain power.

Settlement House (e.g., Hull House, 1889)

Community center in immigrant neighborhoods offering services like childcare, classes, and job assistance; associated with middle-class reform and women’s activism (Jane Addams’s Hull House in Chicago).

Social Gospel

Reform movement applying Christian ethics to social problems, arguing society had a moral duty to address poverty, inequality, and harsh working conditions; part of broader late-1800s urban reform impulses.